


Happily Ever After

by Fatman_000



Category: RWBY
Genre: Arkos2.0: Harder Better Faster Stronger, Dreamscapes, F/M, Lengthy fight scene, Possession, Resurrection, The Mindscape, arkos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-03-12
Packaged: 2018-05-26 06:09:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6226924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fatman_000/pseuds/Fatman_000
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pyrrha believed in destiny. Everything that came after just proved her right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happily Ever After

**Author's Note:**

> The narrator in the "fairy tale" is the same lady as the one from God of War.
> 
> Edit:...I... probably should have asked for reviews when I posted this, huh? Please review. I need criticism to survive!

_Once upon a time, there was a crimson haired girl. She was a warrior and a maiden, blessed with the strength of twenty men and the beauty of a goddess. She courted a handsome, straw haired knight, and was happy. But..._

 

Pyrrha wasn't sure what brought her back. No, that wasn't accurate. She knew. It was a vision of watery blue eyes. Full of pain. Full of regret. Full of loss.

Jaune was on his knees in the forest dirt, away from his friends, from help, miserable, battered and broken and looking for all the world like he'd welcome death. It felt like a night terror. It couldn't possibly be real, but the pang of horror and pain that twisted in her heart like a knife felt so utterly real she couldn't help but try to make the situation better.

She had an arrow pointed at his heart, her fingers on the drawstring slackening, and it took every ounce of energy she had in her to even nudge it, only slightly, to the right. The arrow sang through the air and struck him in the chest, and as everything went dark all she could feel was the terrible agony of watching him injured, in peril, and being powerless to help him.

Fitting how his worst nightmare had become hers.

 

_She was envied by a raven haired witch. So evil and terrible was this witch that she struck the crimson haired girl down atop a great tower, robbing the world of her light and her strength._

 

Cinder was a disease. Her friends were a plague. They were a cancer that killed Beacon and crippled the world, and had set their sights on her home. The land of her ancestors, the place where she had been born and raised, where she had played and grown and loved with all her heart and soul.

The only things left to her.

Deprived of her body, she was merely a wisp. A flickering flame before the storm of hate and evil Cinder Fall called a soul. Held on by the most tenuous of tethers, she was weak, small, and powerless.

But she wasn't gone. Her killer's body was now the seat of her consciousness

She flickers back and forth between the blissful nothingness of death and the groggy, hazy lucidity of someone waking from a deep and terrible coma. She thinks during those periods of wakefulness, it's all she can do. She thinks on life and death. On love and loss. On destiny.

She thought her destiny had been fulfilled when the arrow pierced her breast, in spite of how desperately she wished it hadn't been so. That the destiny she had embraced, to save the world and put an end to the machinations of Cinder even at the cost of her own life and the anguish of everyone she loved, and the future she wanted, a quiet, happy life with her family and friends, surrounded by warmth and love, were mutually incompatible. Yet death, somehow, hadn't been her end, and by implication her destiny remained unfulfilled.

She dared not hope that this meant her dreams could still come true. She was in a desperate situation that she scarcely understood. Hope was something she couldn't afford to have.

 

_The crimson haired girl wept bitterly for an eternity. She thought of her mother._

_“I want to see you again!” She wept._

_She thought of her friends._

_“I want to see you again!” She wept._

_She thought of her knight._

_“I want to see you again!” She wept._

 

Cinder was arrogant. Haughty and cruel, she looked down upon the others, upon everyone, “ally” and “enemy” alike. People were not people to her, they were things. Either tools and toys to be used and tossed aside at her leisure and pleasure, or obstacles to be destroyed. Not killed. Killing implies that something had a spark of life like her own. It filled her with dread to know that her friends counted themselves among the latter category.

Cinder had tried to break their spirits with Jaune in that forest. Leaving his mutilated body behind to torture them, destroy their hope and make them suffer. Especially Ruby.

Sweet, innocent, brave Ruby. Cinder hated her with a viciousness she had never known from anything that lived. The witch was like a Grimm pretending, badly, at being human.

It was hardly the only thing she did either. Entire settlements along their path lay in ruins. Attacks by Grimm at all hours. Emerald impersonating Pyrrha had been a particularly cruel trick she was fond of using. At least whenever Cinder didn't feel like personally intervening to torture them. She was obsessed with destroying them.

Pyrrha needed that, needed Cinder's obsession. The first time she saw Jaune, healthy and whole after their encounter in the forest, she wept with joy. Her heart swelled with pride at seeing them do battle with Cinder. They weren't the equals of the false Fall Maiden, but they put up valiant efforts, and together were slowly getting better at pushing her back. It pained her to admit it, but she felt stronger when she was closer to them, closer to him, even if she was technically hurting them, and Cinder's obsession made sure she was never far. Every encounter cleared a little more of the haze from her perception. Where before she could feel herself fading in and out of the slumber of death, constantly drugged by its calming thrall, she could now control the times she slumbered, and with it a greater connection to the body she now inhabited.

The first few times Ruby and the remnants of team JNPR encountered Cinder, she had intervened with what little power she had in the world. Like that night with Jaune, it was only a little nudge here, a slight twitch there, and suddenly Cinder's unbreakable defence and godlike power weakened, if only enough to let her friends run to lick their wounds.

She remembers how close she came to killing the witch that night on the tower. If she had only listened to Ozpin and sought help. If only she had taken the coward's way and ran...

If only she had the courage to ask Jaune to fight at her side. To save their home. To be the hero he always wanted to be, then she wouldn't be trapped in this purgatory now. They would have had their happily ever after.

She loved him. With such depth and ferocity that she spat on his dreams and marched to her death rather than see him come to even potential harm.

She realized belatedly that he was fighting now. Would have fought at her side at Beacon. Was already the hero he wanted to be. The hero she believed he could be. But she had robbed him of the chance to prove himself, denied him the agency of choosing how he lived and died as a warrior.

They were partners. They were a team. They were stronger together. Ozpin's choice had separated her from them, and she had forgotten the reason why Hunters came in packs. She should never have fought Cinder alone.

It's a mistake she refuses to repeat.

 

_The Goddess of Fall heard the girl's cries. “Why do you weep my child?”_

_“I weep for my family!” She cried. “I weep for my friends!” She cried. “I weep for my beloved, who I shall never see again!” She cried. “I weep for the world, shattered and shadowed by the witch's evil!”_

_The Goddess of Fall smiled on the crimson haired girl._

 

She's not alone in the witch's body. Amber, poor Amber, was here alongside her. She was quiet, reclusive, constantly on the verge of fading into nothingness. The briefest moment, when their souls had touched in the Aura Transfer Machine, had been a torture beyond imagining. Her soul was ravaged, as if brutalized by some kind of animal, and that damaged soul had been overwriting hers. Fitting considering that was, for all intents and purposes, how Cinder had obtained the powers. She remembered a story she read a long, long time ago, where something very like what had happened to Amber had taken place.

_You think stealing the power of God makes you God? You're nothing but a clever thief._

She'd try talking to her sometimes. About the Maiden's powers, about Beacon, about her family, about her team, about anything and everything, if only for the sake of hearing her own voice so she wouldn't go mad.

Amber is a wisp, as she once was, and her heart aches for the pain this poor girl has suffered for bearing a power she probably never asked for.

 

_“What if I told you there was a way to help them.” The Goddess of Fall said._

_“How can I help them from the shadows of the grave?!” The crimson haired girl cried._

_“I shall give you a labour, as I have to your ancestors, and your ancestors before them, and their ancestors before them. And if you succeed, Than you may return to the living. To your family, your friends, and your knight.” The Goddess of Fall said._

_“What would you have me do, oh Goddess of Fall?”_

_“You must kill the raven haired witch. Without your arms, without your legs, without your eyes or ears or tongue. Do you accept this labour, my child?”_

_The crimson haired girl nodded._

 

Every day brings renewed strength. Every encounter with Ruby and the remnants of team JNPR fills her soul with power. She's more blatant in her meddling now, but Pyrrha is a smart girl. Whenever Cinder would try to tap into the power of the Fall Maiden, Pyrrha would punish her, blind and deafen her with migraines so severe lesser men would fall unconscious from the throbbing, unrelenting agony. Her aim was worsening, her strikes became sloppy. Her body burned, as if there was napalm in her veins.

_Wasn't there an experiment about that? By someone named Pavlov..._

Cinder is smart, but she is also arrogant. The dead are the dead after all. She had cruelly stolen the Fall Maiden's power, a power that was never hers, and slayed everyone who could have stopped her or challenged her claim. Anyone else who could have taken on the mantle of the Fall Maiden is dead and gone.

The workings of Auras and Souls are still largely a mystery. Pyrrha is content to let Cinder think that the powers are merely on the fritz.

They drew ever closer to Mistral, and for the first time Pyrrha dares to think that she could be victorious.

 

_Her spirit haunted the witch. Her plan was to destroy her in her castle. So brick by brick she slowly disassembled the foundations of the witch's castle, weakening her home._

 

Like the cancer she was, Cinder had already had a plan in place to bring Mistral to ruin. Unlike Beacon and Vale, which required a finer touch to cause the maximum amount of death and chaos, here all she needed were a few strategically placed bombs. Bombs capable of levelling the city if they were detonated together. Ruby and team JNPR, together with team SSSN and the rest of the students and staff of Haven Academy had sniffed out Cinder's conspiracy, aided by mysterious visions from Jaune.

She suspected that Jaune knew what was happening. He was the only other person present when she had tried to accept the Fall Maiden's power. She had touched her soul to his when they had first partnered in the forest. The light had of his soul had been dulled by the pain of her absence, but it was no less powerful for the determination that filled it instead.

She hoped he knew. Hoped with all her heart and soul. She could hear him sometimes, on sleepless nights when she was desperate for a friendly face and voice. Her immaterial heart ached with the most wonderful melancholy, happy to hear his voice, but pained by his bitter weeping. She heard him lament that he never got to tell her how he felt. Never realized that he loved her. Until it was too late. It filled her with determination to see him again.

With their connection in mind, Pyrrha made sure that Cinder had no secrets. Not from her. Cinder's frustration mounted as her plans were thwarted, her body weakened, her associates captured and killed. The once mighty Fall Maiden, sunderer of the world, destroyer of Beacon, machiavellian architect of the Grimm's greatest victory, had become little more than a Saturday Morning Cartoon villain. It was pathetic. If Pyrrha hadn't been such a kind soul, even in spite of all she had suffered, she would have laughed at her handiwork.

 

_The red haired warrior waited for her chance._

 

Cinder had planned, not an attack, but an assassination. Together with the White Fang, she plotted to sneak into Haven and murder as many students as possible in their sleep. She suspected that someone in her inner circle had betrayed her, and so she let the minutiae of the assault stay within her mind.

Of course, Cinder's own mind was the enemy. She just didn't know it. Yet.

 

_Months passed, and to pass the time, she would visit her knight in his dreams. She would soothe his aching hart with her touch and promises of her imminent return._

_“Wait for me my love.” She said. “For I shall return to you, by the blessing of the Goddess of Fall.”_

 

The attack had been a complete slaughter. For Haven and her allies. The Fang found themselves more than outmatched and even worse, outgunned, and Cinder, who had rested for weeks prior to the attack in the hopes that the Fall Maiden's power would settle, had been ambushed. What could have been another crippling blow to the Kingdoms was turning into a brilliant victory for the heroes.

Cinder had tried to run and Ruby had moved to follow her, but Jaune stopped her, blocking her with his shield.

“Lemme follow after her. There's... There's something going on.”

“Jaune, I know you want to avenge Pyrrha but-”

“That's not what this is about. I think... I just... This isn't about vengeance. It's about... destiny. Just stay here and I'll take care of Cinder.”

“We need to face her together Jaune! I don't know what's going on with her, but she's still the Fall Maiden and we _need_ to face her together!”

“Ruby.” Jaune gripped her shoulders and held her gaze. “Do you trust me?”

“Of course I do Jaune!”

“Then trust me on this. Please.”

“Jaune... I know you miss her, but... Dying to be with her isn't what she'd want...”

“I won't die.”

“How can you know?!” Ruby had tears in her eyes.

“I can't. I know this is gonna sound nuts, but I just have this gut feeling. I'll be okay.”

“Jaune...”

He hugged her tightly. “Stay here and help everyone else, okay? Then you can follow after me.” He murmured into her hair.

They stayed that way for a moment, and separated with trepidation.

“Be careful Jaune. Good luck.”

He ran off after Cinder. “Let's see if I need it.” He muttered to himself.

 

_The knight grew impatient and confronted the raven haired witch in her castle._

_“I have come to slay you, witch! And return The crimson haired girl to life!” He shouted._

_“Your quest is folly, boy.” The raven haired witch replied. “I shall see you dead, and only in hell shall you see your love again!”_

 

Cinder felt a vicious, throbbing pain in her right leg. No amount of Aura she poured into it seemed to lessen the literally crippling pain. She tried to fly away, but the flames, once powerful bursts of heat and death, had become little more than a glorified light show. Ever since that night on the tower the Fall Maiden's power had been weakening. She had plotted for years with her mistress to take the power, to take her rightful place as an all powerful goddess, but ever since she had completed the power it seemed determined to make her suffer.

“Cinder!”

She turned at shot a hateful glare at the blond idiot through sickly eyes. It wouldn't do to show weakness before a mere mortal, especially a miserable speck like the Arc boy. They were in one of the combat arenas of the school, modelled after gladiatorial coloseums that were popular in ancient Mistral. “You... Eager to join your fool parter in death? You needn't have come so far.” She smirked cruelly. “Or resisted so hard.”

“Shut up.”

Her glare darkened. “You need to learn respect, wretch.”

“Respect? You? I'd laugh if the thought didn't make me sick. You aren't worthy of anything.” He spat. “Besides, I'm not here to fight you.”

“Oh?”

“Pyrrha. I know you're in there.”

Cinder chuckled. “So you've gone mad with grief. Understandable. That worthless creature was the only one who could love you wasn't she?” The malice in her eyes turned to the characteristic fire of the Fall Maiden's power. “I'm not her. I'm something far, far greater. So lie down and die, and you two can be together forever in hell.”

“I said shut up. I want to talk to Pyrrha.”

Cinder opened her mouth to cut the boy and his delusions down. The words that left her tongue were not the ones she had meant to say. “Jaune. Can you kill me?”

His eyes widened. As did hers. “Wh-what?! Pyrrha-”

“Can you kill me, Jaune? Fight me as an equal?”

“N-no! Pyrrha I-”

“Jaune! You need to be able to kill me! Kill her! Kill us! It's the only way! I've done everything I can, but you need to finish this!”

Cinder tried to move herself. Tried to stop her mouth from running. Tried to keep her body from betraying her.

“I need you to fight to kill Jaune! There's no other way!” Cinder's, no Pyrrha's voice, was cracking. “If you love me, Jaune, the way I love you, you'll fight to kill, and you won't stop! Please!”

He breathed deeply and schooled his face into a determined mask, betrayed only by the tears that streaked down his cheeks. “I never said this before, Pyrrha, so before I lose my chance... I love you too.”

Cinder felt the foreign presence retreat into her mind, and she felt a wordless challenge being issued. Using a piece of the Maiden's power, she split her consciousness and followed, leaving a portion of herself behind to deal with the blond fool.

 

_“No, witch!” The spirit of the crimson haired girl cried out. “You are the one who shall fall on this day!”_

 

Pyrrha stood tall, defiant and determined in the imaginary space, clutching astral copies of Milo and Akouo, ready for the challenge that approached with eyes ablaze with rage.

Cinder's mindscape was an infinite void on all sides, filled with debris. Chunks of the ruins of Beacon hung in the air like possessed trophies, alongside the ruins of Haven. There were other bits here and there, Pyrrha assumed they belonged to Shade and Atlas, judging by what little she knew of their architectural stereotypes. The ruins of the lights of the world. How fitting for a madwoman.

“I killed you.” Cinder growled. “I don't know how you got in here, but I _will_ kill you again, and then even your pathetic little soul won't survive. You should have simply moved on.”

Pyrrha wasn't intimidated. “That would mean giving up, Cinder. In all the time you have known me, studied me, when have I ever turned and run? I didn't become the Invincible Girl by being a running from the fights that matter.”

“Like the one at Beacon for example?” She smirked cruelly.

“I think you and I both know that fight hasn't finished. Not yet.” Pyrrha let a smirk slowly cross her face. “By the way, that cut on your arm looks pretty bad.”

Cinder's hateful eyes glanced at her left arm and widened in surprise. The red of her sleeve had turned a shade darker, and somehow in the imaginary space it felt wet and hot. She activated her Aura to heal the wound, and was so distracted she almost didn't notice Pyrrha flying at her trying to take her head off with Akouo.

“I am no fool, Cinder. I have learned in the long, long months I spent here.” She followed up with a stab from Milo aimed at the witch's heart. Cinder flew backward to dodge, a seeming infinite distance in the vast void of her mind. A void that vaguely looked like it was filling with the dim light of dawn.

“Clearly not enough if you've deluded yourself into believing that you can kill a god.”

“I almost did it once. My mistake was thinking that my destiny... My life, was only my own. That my duty was my burden alone to bear.”

Cinder fired a blast of searing plasma, intent on incinerating her foe, but missed as Pyrrha leapt off the piece of stone to another close by. With full, unrestrained access to the Fall Maiden's power within her own mind, Cinder would be far more formidable than she had ever been before. The plasma, even missing by several feet, still burned the illusory air, filling it with such terrible heat that even glancing blows would spell her end. Pyrrha stayed on the move, waiting for an opening.

“Let me guess. You should have believed in your friends? The liar who cheated his way into Beacon? The stupid berserker and her weakling pet? The bimbo? The princess? The coward? They all would have died too.”

Pyrrha laughed. “You'd think that, wouldn't you? And yet you needed the power of a god and a pet Grimm the size of a mountaintop to barely be my better.”

Cinder fired a burst of plasma from both hands, snarling at the champion until she cried out. The ray of superheated matter dissipated and Pyrrha struck, transforming Milo into its rifle form and firing multiple shots at Cinder's head. She had hunched over, clutching her stomach, and thus didn't even see Pyrrha taking aim or firing. Her head snapped back, but stayed solid thanks to her Aura, simultaneously snapping her out of her stupor to see Pyrrha hurling Akouo at her. She focused her Maiden power into the debris surrounding her, bringing it together to form a shield of rock that stopped and partially buried the projectile.

“That looked like it hurt. It isn't very fun being on the receiving end of a team effort, is it?” Pyrrha taunted.

“That's right, gloat. Weren't there tales from Mistral about people who were cursed for gloating over a god?” Cinder, always a haughty, cruel, sinister presence, somehow managed to sound even more malicious. “I'll let you in on a little secret, Invincible Girl. Once I'm done killing you, I'm going to kill your worthless boyfriend. I'm going to tear the flesh off his bones. Nice. And. Slow. So Everyone knows what happens when you defy me. That will be your curse.”

The barrier of rock exploded above Cinder's head, Pyrrha reclaiming Akouo while firing rapidly at her foe. “Your threats are as empty as your future Cinder! I will win and you will lose because that is my destiny!”

Cinder summoned her glass swords and leapt at Pyrrha, cutting the bullets out of the air before meeting the edge of Milo. “Your destiny? Child... Your destiny died with you on that tower.”

“And yet here I am. Do you know why?” Pyrrha pushed her off and went for a decapitating strike, blocked and countered by Cinder's left sword while her right aimed at her shoulder but was stopped by Akouo. “Because I was wrong about destiny. It's not just the choices you make to accomplish something. It's the people around you shape with the choices they make as well.” Pyrrha landed on an errant piece of debris, a long, Mistrali styled column. “I was promised a power that didn't belong to me, and through it gained the knowledge that Aura, even the very heart and soul of a person, can be rewritten, or even destroyed. It was only conjecture, but I was the one who had to wrestle with that concept until you robbed me of the other half of the Fall Maiden's power.”

Cinder summoned a storm from the ether, showering Pyrrha with lightning she blocked with Akouo and her Aura. Cinder sustained the assault, pouring elemental energy at the champion and scorching her surroundings in a bid to kill her foe.

“I used to wonder where I went wrong, you know!” Pyrrha called out over the thunder. “What I had done to deserve such a terrible burden! Until I realized that I was always exactly where I needed to be! I, who was placed on a pedestal all my life because of my ability! My beauty! My opportunities, my loneliness, my love, all brought me to this point!”

“Your death, child! The only thing your destiny means is your death! You'll fall before me now as you did before!”

“So you believe!” Her Aura remained strong. “Who am I, to have been blessed with such opportunities?! With friendships that have not only lasted a lifetime, but sustained me beyond death! With the exact knowledge, and the exact power I need to put an end to your evil!”

Cinder blocked her out, ignoring Pyrrha's speech as the delusional raving of a desperate parasite. Until she saw a familiar phantom. Just of of the corner of her eye, the faint yellow trace of Amber's Aura took on the vaguest shape of her form for the briefest fraction of a second.

“Wha-” She cut herself off as she hunched over, clutching her chest, dissipating the clouds in the process.

“Who am I, to have been so blessed to have touched my soul to not one, but two extraordinary people!” Pyrrha charged at her with the column, intent on crushing her into another column that had somehow aligned itself behind her.

Cinder realized what the girl was saying. Back when she had first taken the power of the Fall Maiden from Amber, only half, she had torn into her soul as well. When she had seized the other half, it had been in contact with the soul of Pyrrha Nikos in that machine. She had latched onto the connection the Maiden's power had shared with Amber and herself. “You... You're very uppity for a parasite.”

“No more than you, thief.” Pyrrha crushed Cinder in between the columns, smirking at the supremely satisfying boom of the stone crushing. “It looks like Jaune's giving you trouble as well. Not bad for a 'liar,' hmm?” Pyrrha jumped between pieces of debris and slashed at Cinder's head. The dazed witch reacted too late and felt the edge of Milo press into her scalp with terrible force that sent her flying across the void, through fields of debris that slowly reformed in the wake of her flight. She slammed into the side of a buttressed tower.

“Wait, you can't mean...” Cinder shook her head, trying to shuck off the damage that was building.

“Yes, Cinder. I have touched my soul to not only Amber and the Fall Maiden's power, but to the soul of Jaune Arc as well!”

“That... That FAILURE?!” Cinder raged. “That snivelling little loser I almost killed in Patch?! How?! How is he helping you?! WHAT IS HE DOING?!”

Pyrrha's eyes throughout the battle had been filled with determination and righteous anger, but for the first time they narrowed with hatred. She summoned girders from the ground beneath her with her semblance and aimed them at Cinder. “Only you would think that someone like Jaune Arc is a loser.” She spat venomously, firing the girders at Cinder with enough energy to bury them halfway into the steel of the tower. Cinder backflipped through the barrage, forming her glass bow and arrows to return the assault.

“Sure, he's no knight in shining armour, but he never needed to be! He is kind! Brave! Compassionate! Loyal!” The memory came unbidden to her mind. The night of the dance. The night she had resigned herself to a life of loneliness on the pedestal she'd been on all her life. Until Jaune came in wearing that dress, willingly subjecting himself to the small minded jeers of his classmates, purely because she was sad. Because he wanted to see her smile. “When he wore that dress for me at the prom, he exemplified all the greatest qualities of a hero! Greater than any other! Not that I'd expect _you_ to understand something like that!”

“I don't!” Cinder fired another salvo of arrows, surrounded by godly flame. “So he wore a dress for you! He's still a miserable, worthless failure who can't even hold a sword right!”

“And yet he has the greatest potential out of any of us!” Pyrrha's face twisted into a hateful smirk. “Did you know that he has the largest pool of Aura out of anyone in the class?”

Cinder's eyes widened. “What...?”

“Yes. That boy has, or rather, had, the makings of a great man. He doesn't need a suit of shining armour to prove that he's a hero, he already proved that when he wore that dress! He's already a great man, and more importantly, MY PARTNER!” Pyrrha leapt and sprinted up the side of the tower after Cinder, noting how the environment was reforming around them. Into a a shape that was... Familiar. The void around them brighened further still. “Is there anyone in this world, no this entire _universe_ , living or dead, who would do that for you?! Who would willingly put aside their pride to make you smile when you're sad?!”

“I don't need them! Those people you're talking about? They're a weakness!”

“And yet together, we're beating you! Is there anyone who'd mourn your death, Cinder!? Anyone who would grieve your end!? I share a link to Jaune through our souls, you know! I could hear him weeping some nights, and it was torture!”

Cinder jumped off the side of the tower, twisting in the air and aiming an arrow at Pyrrha, who raised Akouo in response. She simply floated in midair as she fired fruitlessly at the champion, who blocked every arrow with her shield as she leapt off the edge, twisting to land on top of the tower.

“I've realized something Cinder!” Pyrrha shouted defiantly.

“What, child?! What could you possibly have realized.?!”

“That you aren't worth my hate, or my rage, or even my sorrow! The only thing you're worthy of is pity!”

Cinder's eyes widened in rage. “What... You... You dare?” She ground out.

“Yes, pity, Cinder. You think having the power of a goddess will make you happy, but I know from personal experience, that pedestal leads to nothing but pain. You think being worshipped and feared will bring you worth, but it will only bring loneliness, and the awful truth is that you're too twisted to understand and appreciate this. You will kill and destroy and take until there's nothing left in the world to fill the void in your heart!” Pyrrha shouted as she hunched down, placing as much of her body behind her shield as possible.

“Spoken like a true child.”

“And yet...” Pyrrha moved one of her hands out from behind Akouo, and Cinder noticed a faint black glow surrounding it. She heard a mighty whoosh and turned around, a second too late to dodge or stop the girder from smashing into her torso. Her Aura, which should have protected her, barely managed to stop the steel projectile from impaling her, but it dazed her and launched her toward the top of the tower. Toward the champion who jerked her hand back, speeding her projectile up even further. Cinder tried to push the projectile off, but in that portion of a second, in between the time when her Aura had blocked the damage of the girder, and its connection with the top of the tower, Arc managed to land the finishing blow. She felt her Aura break, shocking her for another portion of a second, allowing the unforgiving steel to meet the metal of the tower's floor through her astral body, and her world became blinding, horrific agony. A second of action, followed by several long, torturous minutes of silence.

“Does this place look familiar, Cinder?” Pyrrha finally asked, sadly.

Cinder, even as an astral entity in her own mind, still couldn't find the strength to answer. In spite of the fact that the lungs and chest that had been destroyed were not real. She weakly glanced around, seeing the infinite void become blue sky, saw glass reforming around the circumference of the room, save a portion of the wall which filled with gears, in front of which was a desk, also filled with clockwork machinery. _Ozpin's office...?_

“This place, your mindscape... The shape your mind takes in its dreams, or when you are communing with another soul...” Pyrrha sighed. “It is no longer yours.” She kneeled in front of Cinder's head. “It is mine. It has taken the form of the place where I truly began to live my life. Where I found love and happiness. I'm sorry.” She placed her hands on either side of Cinder's head. “You are no longer welcome here.”

For the first time in her life, Cinder felt tears burn down her cheeks. “Why... I was the Fall Maiden... I was... I was...”

“Alone. Alone and unloved and blind. Cinder, I asked you if you believed in destiny, once.” Pyrrha smiled an inscrutable smile, full of sorrow and pity and hate and joy. “What happened here is your destiny... And mine. We shaped this with our choices. From the day I picked up my spear, and the day you chose to pursue the power of the Fall Maiden, we were destined to come to this point. If we had done even a single thing differently, this outcome wouldn't have happened.”

“I... I killed you...”

“And I fought you. This wouldn't have happened if I had run away with Jaune. It wouldn't have happened if you had spared me on that tower. But we both know that wouldn't have happened. It's not in our nature. Do you still believe in destiny, Cinder?”

“No... I... I...”

“I'm sorry. That you thought all this suffering was worth a power that was never yours. Take solace in the fact that, with it, I will live a long, happy, beautiful life that you couldn't possibly imagine. This is the destiny. No. The fate that you sowed for yourself when you took my life.”

Cinder's eyes widened and she lashed out, grabbing Pyrrha's hands in a vice like grip. “No! I won't let it end like this! If... If I have to die! You die with me Nikos!”

Pyrrha felt an unbearable heat shoot through her arms and shred through her Aura. A terrible searing so like her death, so like the arrow that incinerated her heart that she cried out involuntarily and struggled to get away. She could see her arms starting to glow when another pair of hands planted themselves atop Cinder's.

They were the colour of a rich, milky chocolate, and with a grip like iron that wrenched Cinder's hands away. Pyrrha felt a warm, soft, comforting weight settle against her back, and a head settle next to hers. “No. She won't Cinder. How about you face your end with a little dignity?” She yanked viciously and tore Cinder's arms off, and in her grasp they dissolved into the aether, fittingly enough, like the Grimm.

“Amber?” Pyrrha was shocked. Wasn't she too damaged? Too weak to help?

“Sorry you had to deal with all this on your own, Pyrrha. And... Thank you, for trying to help me and the Ozpin. That couldn't have been easy.”

“How?” Cinder gasped. “I killed you...”

“That's what happens when you try to steal a god's power from it's rightful owner, bitch!” Amber spat. “Do us all a favour and die!”

“Amber, please.” Pyrrha said placatingly.

“What?”

“Let us simply finish this. She has wronged many, and you are not wrong to hate her for what she's done, but we mustn't indulge in the cruelty she revelled in.” Pyrrha looked down.

Cinder couldn't understand what was happening. Her arms were gone. _Wait, what's an arm?_ Her memories didn't make any sense. Why was she here? How had she gotten here? How did she use a bow again? Why did bows and swords exist, humans only had legs right? _Wait, what are legs?_

Her legs started dissolving, followed by her thighs, followed by her torso. _None of these memories make any sense_... How was she doing anything, humans didn't... Didn't... What...?

Her golden eyes closed as her chin started to dissolve.

“Infinite in distance, unbound by death, I release your soul... Cinder Fall.”

 _Cinder Fall... Is that my name?_ She wondered briefly, for a flicker of a second, before silent, eternal oblivion took her.

Pyrrha sighed shakily, wrapping her arms around herself as she felt the first tears start to fall. “Thank god... It's over... It's finally over...”

She felt Amber's arms wrap around her as well, rubbing soothing circles on her biceps. She was parroting Pyrrha's mantra in a fierce whisper, as if she was trying desperately to convince herself that what was happing was real. She felt the former Fall Maiden, the _true_ former Fall Maiden, take her hands, motioning to make her stand.

“You did it.” Amber said through a teary smile. “You killed her. She's gone for good.”

Pyrrha dared not believe it. “I-Is she really? She could-”

“Nope!” Amber said shakily, popping the p. “I remember what was happening that time in the Aura Transfer machine, and you do too. I was rewriting, god, I was destroying your soul and replacing it with mine. It's the same thing you did to her.” Amber's melancholic smile turned a shade vicious. “Unlike literally everyone else on this planet, there's no hereafter for her. No heaven or hell or reincarnation, or anything. The world has permanently been purged of her taint. Now she's just like the Grimm she was in bed with.”

Pyrrha thew her arms around the former goddess and wept, they both did, harder than they ever had before. With relief and joy and aching sorrow. “Thank god! Thank you! I-I'm so blessed... That I got to meet you! I couldn't have done this without you! You... You-!”

Amber laughed. “Hey hey hey! This wasn't my show sweetie, this was all you. Your connection to dorky noodle boy is what gave you strength, literally, and yeah, I guess I might have pulled off a last minute save, but you did all the heavy lifting, and you know what, you probably didn't even need me in the end there.”

Pyrrha laughed incredulously. “Of course I did! You saved me Amber! Twice! You were my lifeline when everything went wrong. I can't- I can't thank you enough for saving me!”

“You can start making it up to me by boning dorky noodle boy till you send him to the hospital with a crushed pelvis.” Amber joked.

“I'll make sure it's the first thing I do when things calm down a little.” Pyrrha's cheeks had reddened from the teasing, but she was too elated to care.

“Good. You deserve to be happy.”

“Wait.” Pyrrha pulled away from the hug. “What about you?”

“What about me? I'm gonna move on.”

Pyrrha's eyes widened. “But you can't! There's still so much to do! I still need your guidance!”

“If you're talking about the Fall Maiden's powers, they're gone. They became tied to Cinder's soul, and when you destroyed it, the power went to someone else, probably someone random.”

Pyrrha looked shocked. “Truly?”

“Yep!” Amber replied, popping the p again. “No Fall Maiden powers for you sweetie! You're just gonna be a normal girl like everyone else!”

“But... Still, what about you? You've suffered as well, longer and more than I.”

Amber's smile sobered again, and she gently cupped Pyrrha's face. “You're not wrong, but unfortunately I'm older than you, and I've also been dead longer than you as well.” Amber closed her eyes and took a deep breath before continuing. “I've been dead and suffering ever since Cinder took half the Fall Maiden's power, and all I wanna do is rest. Besides, I've been living on borrowed time anyway. It ain't our burden anymore, so... let's be selfish, just this once.” She winked. “And like I said, I'm older than you anyway, so you have to do what I say.”

Pyrrha clenched her fists while she thought of a suitable reply. “I... I understand.” She smiled sadly. “I never would have agreed before, but...”

“Death, has a way of changing how we think, sweetie. You wanna live life a little more selfishly now, because there's so much you want, and so much you want to give, and you're going to be the first, last, and only person in all of Remnant who gets to really appreciate everything life has to offer because you _know_ how much you really have to lose when you die.”

Pyrrha's face hardened into a determined smile. “Yes, it has, yes, I will, and yes, I do. I've learned my lesson about shouldering the world's burdens alone.”

“Good.” Unlike Cinder, who quickly and violently dissolved into nothingness, Amber started to gently fade.

Pyrrha felt more tears burn down her cheeks. “I wish we had more time. Is there nothing I can do to convince you to stay? Anything I can do to thank you for all you've done?”

Amber gave an exaggerated sigh. “Not really! But I guess if you really wanna thank me, you'll do what I say and bone dorky noodle boy. Also...” Her face suddenly turned bashful. “It would actually be super cool if you signed my boob?”

Pyrrha's joy immediately evaporated. “What.”

Amber giggled bashfully. “I, uh, I'm actually a huge fan of yours. It'd be super great if I could pass on with your autograph to make all the other dead people jealous.”

Pyrrha chuckled with exasperation, holding her head in her hand while blindly groping the mindscape recreation of Ozpin's desk for a marker. “I'm not sure how I should feel about one of the godlike mythological Seasonal Maidens being a fan of mine.” She lamented as she signed the offered flesh with a marker that had probably simply started spontaneously existing.

“Ex-maiden. And be flattered! It means you've got a super badass and awesome guardian angel!”

Pyrrha finished signing. “I really do wish we had more time. I feel like we would have been wonderful friends if things were different.”

“Pyrrha, I accidentally almost destroyed you soul, and through that we've become closer than almost anyone. Our souls are bonded now, the same way yours is bound to Jaune. I'm glad you kept talking to me though.” Amber smiled softly. “So, even if we're separated by death...” Amber's fading reached her torso, yet she reached out to take Pyrrha's hand one final time. “Call, and I'll come running. Bye, Pyrrha Nikos. Go get your happy ending.” She faded away completely

“I will. Thank you, and farewell Amber.”

 

_For five days and five nights the knight, the raven haired witch, and the crimson haired girl battled, watched over by the Goddess of Fall. The knight would strike with his sword, while the crimson haired girl struck with the stone of the castle. With a final strike to her chest, The knight felled the raven haired witch._

_“Damn you!” She cried “Damn you to the nine hells and all their tortures!”_

_“I shan't, witch!” The knight proclaimed. “For love has protected me, and with the love in my heart, I shall see my beloved once again! This is the promise she has made me by the grace of the gods!”_

_With that cry a terrible shudder shook the castle, weakened by the machinations of the crimson haired girl. Piece by piece it all came apart on their heads. The knight made to flee, but was stopped by an invisible force._

_Like a whisper in the autumn wind The Goddess of Fall spoke. “Do not leave the body of the raven haired witch. For if she stay in this place, she shall return and all will be lost.”_

_The knight took the witch's body and fled._

_The crimson haired girl and the Goddess of Fall stood in the ruin of the castle._

_“No! This cannot be!” The crimson hired girl wept._

_“Why do you cry my child?” The Goddess of Fall asked._

_“It was not my hand that slayed the raven haired witch, but my brilliant, beautiful knight's and by his actions we shall never see each other again! I failed my labour, and must thus accept my end, no matter how it pains my heart!”_

_“Oh, but you did slay the raven haired witch.”_

_“How? How have I accomplished the task you asked of me?”_

_“It was the love in the knight's heart that moved his sword into the raven haired witch's heart. The love he felt for you, and the love you felt for him.”_

_“So, I may return.”_

_“Not quite, my child. In three day's time, on a full moon, when the last vestiges of the witch's soul are gone. You shall take her body and make it yours in that time. Your knight will be afraid at first, but he will look into your eyes, and see the eyes of his love. Is this agreeable to you?”_

_“Yes. As long as I have pleased you, oh Goddess of Fall.”_

_“Then wait. Wait for the full moon in three day's time, when the barrier between the world of man and spirit is weak, and seize your fate.” The Goddess of Fall smiled kindly._

 

Pyrrha felt like hell. Like she'd been sleeping for days. Her head felt heavy, her eyelids felt heavy, her limbs felt like lead, her head pounded in her skull, and she could feel the beginnings of several ugly bruises forming alongside multiple bleeding cuts and lacerations. She felt a terrible chill over her entire body, and everything felt subtly... Wrong. Even still, she could feel a warmth pressing into her. Dimly, she realized it was a body. A body that was hugging her. She opened her eyes and immediately shut them again as the light assaulted her eyes and made them throb in her skull. She tried again, squinting at first so she could adjust them, and soon she could make out her surroundings through her bleary vision.

She could see a piece of armour directly beneath her head, covering a back protected by a black hoodie.

“Jaune...” Her voice sounded... Wrong. It was too husky, and lower and pitch than she remembered.

She felt something press into her back. She could feel the point of a sword trough the flimsy fabric of the dress that covered her. She blinked rapidly to adjust her eyes quicker.

She was in a colosseum. A destroyed one, covered in scorches and blast marks, partially caved in and strewn with rubble. The light of the night sky, the stars of Mistral flanking the shattered moon of Remnant, shone on them, surrounded on all sides by smouldering fires and the concerned, wary, and fearful gazes of their friends. No... Not all of them. Yang, Blake and Weiss weren't there. They all had their weapons trained on the pair.

“Pyrrha...” Jaune said. He sounded so tired and beaten and sad. “I... I want to believe that's you, but...”

She felt his grip on the sword, no, on Crocea Mors, tighten.

“I've... We've all been through so much... So If that's really you, then tell me.” His voice was wavering, but filled with determination. “Tell me something only Pyrrha and I would know. No one else in the world!”

For several moments, a tense silence reigned. She dug through her memories, and kept finding herself returning to one. One moment, that's all it was. It was the most wonderful, beautiful and painful thing she'd ever done.

“I kissed you.” She felt him tense. “I kissed you.” Her voice started to crack. “I finally worked up the courage to show you how I felt, and then I... I...” Tears started to fall, and she felt a sob wrack her body. “I pushed you into that locker, and I left you. I left Ren and Nora. I...” The tears were cascading, and she could barely force the words out through the sobs tearing through her. “I... You... You trusted me... You trusted me with your dreams and your fears and I betrayed you! I made your worst nightmare a reality! All you ever wanted to be was a hero, to fight alongside your friends instead of being the... god... 'the loveable idiot stuck in the tree...'

The sword dropped. She felt his arms go slack for a second before they flew to her shoulders and pulled her in front of him.

He could barely believe what he was seeing. Before him was Cinder Fall, the witch who saw Beacon destroyed, who killed Pyrrha, who had been the personal root of their suffering for more than a year, who had ruined their lives. But her eyes. They weren't the cruel, wicked yellow that Jaune had come to loathe, they were a verdant, brilliant green that he never thought he'd see ever again. They were the most beautiful eyes Jaune had ever seen, even marred by the puffy redness of her crying, and their refusal to meet his.

“You have to believe me Jaune! I never meant to hurt you!” She wailed. Cinder's voice was speaking, but the inflections were wrong. Cinder was cold, haughty, and arrogant. This voice was warm, regal, and sweet, even marred by the terrible sobbing that shook her body. It was like a melody he thought he'd never hear again. “I did it because I love you, and I couldn't live with myself if you were hurt! You... You have to believe me! Please! Please! Please!” She begged.

“It can't be...”

She locked eyes with him. “I... I understand if you hate me Jaune... You wouldn't be wrong... But please tell me you understand why...” She choked on the last words.

His grip tightened. “Pyrrha? Oh god, it's really you. It's really you! I-I can't believe this is happening!” Tears burned down his cheeks as the widest, happiest grin she'd ever seen split his face. “How could I hate you! All I've wanted since Beacon fell was to have you back!I-I never got to tell you- to say I- ghhh!”

His hands moved from her shoulders to her face, and he pulled her into a kiss.

She vividly remembered their first kiss. It was chaste, but passionate and desperate, fuelled by her wish to communicate all the love she felt, all the memories she wanted to make, and the aching longing for a future she thought she'd never get. His lips were chapped and dry, but they moulded to hers so perfectly that she knew, without doubt, that they were meant to be, that her fears were unfounded, and that she was about to break both of their hearts.

This kiss was far, far different, and far more beautiful. It was just as desperate as their first, it was just as passionate, just as loving. Yet this kiss was far more sloppy. It tasted like blood and snot and tears, and she wouldn't have changed it for anything because it meant that her destiny and her dreams had finally come together

“Jaune, what are you doing?!” Ruby yelled.

They separated. Pyrrha looked down at her hands and closed her eyes, smiling. She stood up and held her hands in the air in 'surrender.'

Ren was the first to notice. “Are her eyes...?”

Her hands glowed black and the weapons of everyone in the room flew from their hands, captured by Pyrrha's semblance. Ruby and Nora figured it out next.

“That was Pyrrha's semblance!” Nora shouted exitedly.

“It couldn't be...” Ruby's eyes were wide with shock.

Pyrrha stabbed the weapons into the ground around her, deciding to indulge in a little drama to really drive home that she was back. That she had truly returned to the world of the living. She was met with slack-jawed awe. “I'm sorry, was that too dramatic?”

“Pyrrha!” Ren shouted in an uncharacteristic display of rapture, sprinting toward her and wrapping her in a crushing hug, followed by Nora and Ruby in a burst of Rose petals. Everyone else she knew from Haven followed after them, people she had met in tournaments, her classmates from Sanctum, all dogpiled onto her. She had never felt happier in her entire life than she did at that moment, surrounded by friends and loved ones who unashamedly celebrated her miraculous return, albeit in the body of one of their worst enemies. She looked around the pile of bodies and noticed one was missing.

 

_She followed the Goddess' instructions, and followed after the knight and the raven haired witch. She waited and followed for three days, and when the moon was full, when they rested near a glade, ehe entered the body of the witch._

_“What evil is this?!” The knight shouted._

_“Fear not my love, for it is I, your crimson haired girl, reborn into the body of the raven haired witch.”_

_“Your eyes. It cannot be, can it? Is this the work of the Goddess of Fall? Truly is it you my love?”_

_“Yes, though I am now the raven haired girl, in spirit I am your love, and I have returned to you.”_

 

Pyrrha broke away from them and looked back, seeing Jaune still on his knees in shock. She walked to him, and knelt before him, gently grabbing his hands, rubbing soothing circles into the back of his palm.

“Please tell me I'm not dreaming.” He begged. “P-Please. I've dreamed about this for so long, and I don't know how much longer I can take it. So please... I-If this is a dream, I don't wanna wake up...”

“You're not dreaming Jaune. I'm back. And I'm never leaving ever again.”

 

_The raven haired girl and the knight kissed passionately under the light of the moon, presided over by the Goddess of Fall. There, they affirmed their love, and there they decided to spend the rest of their lives together._

_Hand in hand, lips against lips, they embraced the beginnings of their future._

_Together, they lived happily ever after._

 

“Jaune, there's so much I want to say. So much I want to show you. So much I lost the chance to at Beacon. So before you say anything else, please, let me just say this.” She made a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob.

He nodded dumbly.

“I love you, Jaune. And...” She smiled. A radiant, beautiful, loving smile that made her cheeks hurt. “Hello again.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I have some very smart folk at 4chan to thank for the inspiration for this monster, and this will be my personal headcanon until Vol 4 starts and stomps all over it with the whole "Female character dies to enhance male character's arc" bullshit, and if I hear anything about those bullshit Silver Eye Powers and how Pyrrha's death was unavoidable and necessary to move the plot one more time, I'm gonna cause an international incident. *Grumble grumble*
> 
> So I suppose the bulk of the credit for this story should go to the lovely anons of 4chan who honestly put together a pretty badass and actually kinda plausible Pyrrha lives theory. I might do an actual writeup for it so it lives beyond an archived 4chan thread and a screencapped KYM snap. Have a link!
> 
> http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1085508-rwby
> 
> P.S. If you need a frame of reference fro how badly Pyrrha was fucking with Cinder near the middle there, imagine current!Cinder as Paptimus Sirocco, and future!Cinder as 80s Cobra Commander.


End file.
